


Favored

by kerning



Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-12
Updated: 2017-12-12
Packaged: 2019-02-13 19:01:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12990483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kerning/pseuds/kerning
Summary: Gerome must lead and Inigo could merely follow. The way of it all, really. Even so, as the music dwindled Gerome sought after him, subdued yet eager as the first bud of spring.





	Favored

                Called upon in the middle of the night, Inigo arose from his pallet, the attendant sent to fetch him allowing no time for appearances, so in a simple cotton tunic without his sword, arrived before Gerome’s room sans reception, woefully inadequate for any sort of protection, lest it be required. Suite in its usual standard of perfect neatness, no apparent catastrophe greeted Inigo as he peered into the room save for the man who occupied it.  
                Outfitted like a prince, Gerome met Inigo’s greeting much the same despite the late hour— he had not slept and there some small comfort in their like habits settled Inigo’s nerves— as though by rights devastation came in threes. From head to toe, clothing rich with swirling embroidery, hair pushed back in a favored style, Gerome embodied regal composure, yet how his eyes, unencumbered by the ornate mask worn while traversing beyond the estate, there lay plain his malcontent in the suiting of a duke on the cusp of marriage.  
                It’s a swift thievery of breath, Inigo reaching for the courage of his own lineage. “Milord, you…”  He faltered at the crease of Gerome’s brow. _To dutifully protect_. All the while pining, his ancestors bore no responsibility for his own misguided heart. And there no comfort. “You asked for me?”  
                “My apologies, at such an hour, I am in need of your council.”  
                An odd flush of embarrassment washed over him, for all of his father’s teachings of propriety abandoned him in favor of a mouth inclined to errant speech, gesturing to Gerome in full. “I’ve never known you for such spontaneity.”  
                Words unforthcoming and thumbing at his unbuttoned high collar, a mark of dishevelment in light of the finery worn well in spite of his discomfort, Gerome remained mute.  
                If simple loneliness lay claim to him that too would be vanquished.  “I shall answer your call to arms.”  
                They sat together. The fireplace crackled, embers within casting a lambent warmth about the room. He will miss this. And perhaps he cannot quell the overbearing nostalgia wound through the present like ivy through a trellis. Earlier in the day, they rode together, horses gaining on one another in a race with no apparent rules or winner. Sweating in the cool of the shade, Gerome laughed at one of his jests, that quiet sound Inigo could keep forever. This silence cannot hold yet he will not, cannot break its spell. In it, he can suspend all that lay before and ahead.  
                In time, Gerome breathed out as if it were the first he took in a long moment. “I fear the coming morning.”  
                “Whatever should you fear— poor table manners? You’ll make a fine first impression.”  Inigo knew enough of the whispers. For the duchy’s sake, he spoke around the burrs coating his tongue. “I’m sure she will be beautiful enough.”  
                “I care nothing for beauty.”  
                Confused by this particular vehemence, Inigo tried again. “Wits then, her letters must hold some promise?”  
                “Polite if not wholly uninteresting.”  
                “If she’s lacking in that regard I’m sure she can make up for it in other ways.” At his own wit’s end, he grimaced in turns by the thought of a marriage bed and the twist of nausea that accompanied it.  
                “Don’t be crass.” Gerome chided him, gaze at once distant and mouth downturned. “Obligation cannot blind me, I am simply unfit.”  
                “Unfit to what end, no, though sureties may be of little pittance as a common man, I assure you they remain unshaken.” Inigo quieted for Gerome held the look of one whose faculties lay beyond a depth mere words could affect, furrow of his brow craggy in shadow. Inigo’s fingertips tingled with the desire to smooth Gerome’s collar, notch each pearl button against the slow dip of his throat. One transgression in hope of setting right the slope of his shoulders, lingering together on this ink blue night. The sword callus on his thumb rasped against his drawn knuckles.  
  
\---  
  
                The next morning, in the damp air and dew laden grass, Their Graces the Duke and Duchess eagerly stood in the courtyard alongside their son— allowing for aging, they were nearly identical to the grand portrait in the main hall, regal and composed, time forming Gerome into a somber composition aged twenty years and equally stoic.  
Among their assembly and clad in the attire of his station, Inigo found a dullness seized him despite the slow warmth of the sun, which retreated fog over the road leading to the chateau gates whence she arrived in a gilded carriage pulled by several fine horses.  Truth be told, Inigo expected the clanging of bells, a heraldic ceremony of misfortune upon his own senses when the footman opened the door.  
                Sheen of the fabric gleaming as she stepped down to earth, her dress swung heavy with embroidery, however much her face was as plain as a cup of water. Their Graces greeted her with formalities, a kiss upon her cheek before partitioning as if sentinels from on high, assessing Gerome’s stinted bow. Was he pleased? He moved forward, introduction overshadowed by Inigo’s pulse ringing in his ears, and proffered his arm, her hand fit snug in the crook of it.  
  
\---

  
                Inigo busied himself in spare moments training until his mind emptied, for he must lack direction, so consumed by the past. At night, Gerome called upon him and he so answered. The guards tasked outside his apartments met Inigo with scrutiny, the mire round his heart eased at their vigilance as he entered the room. Even now Inigo came to cherish the cold light of the moon, the blanket of stars tucked nearly out of sight by curtains. They two sat on the ornate couch nearest the fire, Gerome asked him of his day and neither mentioned his fiancée.  
  
\---  
  
                Within the carriage, the near jaw-cracking yawn Inigo shied away from Gerome’s view was entirely his own fault. Expectations unfulfilled, he spent the night in his room on a thin pallet, loneliness and circumstances in tandem coaxing him to meet the dawn. A predilection for anxiety, perhaps, that Inigo, having peered down from the balconette found Gerome and his betrothed, her hands clasped together as if accustomed to holding themselves, flower tucked into her hair, strolling the garden. Could he come to love her?  
                Instead Gerome surprised him all the more when he devised their adventure. _A gift for her_ , Gerome suggested though Inigo procured it. Despite proximity, Inigo cast a malaise-laden glance at the box occupying the bench before him. It’s existence credited their closeness, the ghost of heat between their bodies steady as they returned to the estate, yet wretchedness and exhaustion besieged Inigo before he could tarry on it.  
                Inigo awoke by Gerome’s nudge, mortification settling over him as that foggy confusion of the deeply asleep lifted. Somehow unconsciousness led him find rest on his shoulder. It had been a pleasant dream.  
                Inigo mumbled an apology though Gerome waved it away. “No need, perhaps, you should stay with me.” A tap against the door, and Gerome assented before it swung open, a great swathe of midday sun washing them both. Squinting, Inigo brought himself to sorts, smoothing over his wrinkled shirt, only to falter at his proposal. “Do my accommodations not suit you, are they not to your liking-- I would change them.” As the servants carried the box from the carriage, Gerome went quiet in a way Inigo knew he was avoiding prying ears. “I am less myself as the weeks pass, please don’t desert me too.”  
                The room adjacent to his own, meant for him yet he had refused then. As he must now. “I am your knight and companion if you so choose. As honor and duty allows.” The simplest form of his protests. “I would not wish to seem favored.”  
                “But you are.” The words are candid; Inigo could do nothing save acquiesce before them.  
                And his smile, the gentleness of his eyes behind that iron mask were too real to be of the waking world.  
  
\---  
  
                Borne like an albatross of truth, a single door separating them could drive Inigo mad.  
  
\---  
  
                A balanced bouquet, not dry enough to be abrasive nor its’ sweetness cloying, the wine Inigo savored soothed the bite of his admittedly poor hand of cards. Luck deserted him on a whim.  
                “How could you best me?” Inigo huffed as showing their hands confirmed his fears true. “What a poor teacher I make.”  
                “Simple, I know your face.” Gerome stared over the rim of his nearly drained glass. “And you give away much.”  
                Indeed he did.  
                Idly running his fingers over the ivory mosaic, Inigo leant over the tabletop at once buoyant and soft in asking, ‘Do you remember when we…’  
                Of course, very few memories weren’t in keeping for why Gerome was assigned guards outside his apartments. There was no trouble, however, in recounting or in flowing laughter, and their knees grazed one another occasionally.  
  
\---  
  
                There were more boons to their friendship than fine wine and games, even wit at times but at this treachery, displeasure coursed down Inigo’s spine. For of all the secrets Gerome could’ve exposed, he should refuse and be done with it.  
                Warm from both the crackling fire, and the prospect Gerome laid before him, Inigo eyed the man at the piano, who in spite of his rough appearance only deemed it a service to milord and swore himself to secrecy if he were so obliged.  
                “You want me to dance with you...?”  
                “I’m terrible.” It doesn’t come often, when Gerome admitted to fault. “It won’t do to embarrass myself. Dancing was never my forte. Or passion.”  
                Music swelling at Gerome’s command, Inigo sighed, as put upon as he could muster without shocking the ears present. “Haven’t you tutors for this?” Their hands met, and he fell into step. But where his palms remained hesitant, Gerome pressed steadfast, incongruous with his skill.  
                “It’s wearisome to concentrate—” Gerome swore like an apology in the near collision with Inigo’s feet, “while memorizing an abridged history of the duchy’s land disputes.”  
                Inigo found his good humor, at the clear vision of Gerome—harangued by the old counselor, ledger aloft— as he drifted much in the manner he chose now, scowl writ plain. “Try to work on your expression; you’re counting beats in your head. You know this…” Inigo then led him through the dance instead. “One step before the other.”  
                Piano steeped in such formality and grace that it seemed inevitable they eventually move as one, the candelabras burned as flickering orbs around them. Then Gerome, for all his brooding, gripped firm against the small of Inigo’s back to draw him closer and so that the heat of it warmed past his doublet and tunic to his very skin, sharp and in an instant Inigo was not looked at but through; where in the space of a quarter turn Gerome’s austere façade cracked apart and Inigo, slipping past, his heart which could leap stuttered, for in regards to Gerome’s ardor, the intensity of which brought a frisson not unlike that of a particularly cornered and henceforth doomed quarry left without breath—pleading only their quickened pulse between intertwined fingers should save him alone an undignified end, Inigo rather pinned his gaze upon a painting behind Gerome’s head, the colors a meaningless morass, for he couldn’t bear its’ onslaught.  Lips parted in a wholly unbecoming manner, there emitted, he was embarrassed to acknowledge it as such though it was, in fact, a mild spasm of a choke before collecting himself.  
                Gerome must lead and he could merely follow. The way of it all, really. Even so, as the music dwindled Gerome sought after him, subdued yet eager as the first bud of spring. “Again?”  
                “I believe…” Inigo faltered at his outstretched hand, unsteady voice sinking into the carpets. “I believe you are imminently without peerage. Excuse me.”  
                He unfolded out of a stiff bow and with nowhere to go, fled, latching firm the lock of his room and settled, kneading the weight of a hand not meant for him to know and dispelling the brand with one persistent thought.  
_One day it would be her. Always._  
                Memories now matured as buried golden relics, their location smudged out of existence save to him alone. Beautiful yet worthless. He would dim in the milieu of Gerome’s life until he was a faint shadow. Smoldered to ash and of him with it, what love tampered and dulled before a future of abject dissolution as the years passed.  
                With the caustic unending loop of his thoughts, indignity arrived, simmering beneath his skin so that his voice cracked in denial at the knock on the door. Curse him.  
                “Inigo.” Again, a stone was cast against his barricade. “It has been the better part of two hours.”  
                Mute, he waited for him to leave. Surely business, some itinerary would pry him away.  
                “You who lack all empathy or a heart which guides you to shut me out.” A shudder against the door Inigo only imagined as Gerome bracing his weight against its frame. “Do you intend to— have I offended? I should thank you and I meant you no disservice, your talents were appreciated.” His voice now reverberated through the wood in its closeness. “Much better than you fare at cards.”  
                He would laugh at himself for how his face burned at an earnest compliment. Half-drowned his private mirth suspended between the silver breach of water and air.  
                “Inigo, please.” The doorknob rattled once, Gerome nearly stumbling through the threshold as Inigo threw open the door.  
                “What do you know of what guides you?” Spilt from his tongue, to his own ears he sounded a fool. The whole of the duchy coursed in the lifeline of Gerome’s palm.  
                “Why else? I wished to make right between us.”  
                “As ever we are— Enough.” It was not a command, could never be, yet resolution drove him. “Did she like the gift?”  
                Gerome’s face took on the abruptly bewildered expression of one who struggled to recollect an obscured memory. “It was expensive, it sufficed.”  
                The dagger a hair’s breadth from his own throat twisted, words cleaved from him. “But you presented it to her. Did she like it?”  
                “The servants brought it to her.” He frowned, crossing his arms. “What sort of inquiry is this, I don’t follow.”  
                “You treated me as a burden once, yet your gifts were always given to me personally. It only seems...” Inigo trailed off, at a loss. Carelessly fretting with the heavy curtain’s edge, the view he’d gazed upon these weeks with growing familiarity wore smooth as a river stone. “Pardon me, I don’t mean to critique your method of courtship, I’ll speak no more out of turn.”  
                “You, out of turn? Deprived as I am, I suppose I must ply the words from your mouth.” The amusement sobered from Gerome’s voice. “There is no courtship, if I’ve any respite of late, it’s only in your presence.”  
                Humbled and flustered, his own heartache would ruin him. “You are sentimental, my company is not so prized.”  
                “If I’ve any right to my name, can I not be arbiter of the company I keep? My good friend— such a word grows bittersweet with its’ inadequacy— I never wished to marry.  But I find myself, content in your presence. More than content.”

                Gerome crossed the space between them in seemingly two paces, reaching out for Inigo’s hand. Steadfast and gentle. Through the lead diamond panes of the window, a sparrow alighted on a distant tree. The branch does not break. As Gerome mulled over his words, Inigo faced him, tethered by their connection in silence.

                “I am not a pleasant man, of that much I wished to spare another. But your presence or I should say companionship, has been a balm to the misfortune of my station. In a way I should be grateful, for you.” He squeezed his hand the once. “For courage to forge another path, one where I could remember both myself and be worthy of you. If you would have me, of course.”

                “Have you?” Heartbeat pounding in his ears, Inigo grasped Gerome’s hand between his own before letting go, hands heavy with the echo of its warmth. “I-I am your knight, I fought and won the honor in the tournament. I mean to protect you with my life. There is no better offer Gerome, Heir Apparent of House Rosanne, what you ask is already given.”

                “You need not refer to my title; greed has moved me to ask of you more than I should hope. And your limits, have been met.” Gerome’s head bowed in penance, that striking note of defeat laced his voice, and what might have been a resigned smile faded prior to glancing at Inigo through his lashes. “If I am to spend my days sustained by the memory of what it was to hold you, then perhaps that, too, was cruel.”

                Inigo clutched at the front of his own tunic fearing the worst as the carapace of his heart neatly pierced through. “How can you speak just so? If you mean to torture me, you’ve found the quickest route. I will make myself nothing. Are you so stubborn to not see your own greatness? There, one day there will be another painting, you, your wife, maybe children. And the people will come to love you as I do. You will be a fine leader.” Inigo ignored Gerome’s adamant refusals, the distant notion of his hand upon his shoulder; only the instinct to surrender, lean into the wall of his body enveloping him. It’s years of decorum giving way. Just for a glimmering moment. “If that’s not what you want anymore…  I quite like my head on my shoulders, you know.”  He aimed for cavalier but fell flat, a thickness to his voice betrayed him, gathered in the whole of Gerome’s attentions.

                “I could never allow harm come to you. You said you loved me. I want nothing else.” Your hand in mine. I care for you in return you need not doubt that. Oh, a rare thing to hold him hostage. “What happiness I do find I wish to share with you.”

                All reasonable allowances vanished and unable to bear anymore, Inigo came to rest his forehead against Gerome’s collarbone, his hidden smile tender. Gerome murmured all soft words. “Come away with me.” Their noses brushed, more promises full of starlight, whispered then pressed to the corner of his lips. “Please.”

 

\---

 

                In the vineyard of a summer eternal, Inigo and Gerome find an abandoned manse close to the lake. It takes time, and even when rumors reach his ears, whispers do not keep him warm at night, nor bring Gerome away from this concentric life built with precious Minerva in tow and his way with animals gives him the most peace.  Still, the cellars are full that year, then the next. And he kissed him as many times as he deemed fit, of which there are many. They are happy.

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to try my hand at something relatively short. As ever, comments are appreciated and thanks for reading! Please treat your eyes to this beautiful illustration by Gilmobobo [here](http://gilmobobo.tumblr.com/post/174772512441)!!


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